REMOVEXATTR

Section: System calls (2)
Updated: Extended Attributes
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NAME

removexattr, lremovexattr, fremovexattr - remove an extended attribute

SYNOPSIS

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <attr/xattr.h>

int removexattr (const char *path, const char *name);
int lremovexattr (const char *path, const char *name);
int fremovexattr (int filedes, const char *name);

DESCRIPTION

Extended attributes are name:value pairs associated with inodes (files, directories, symlinks, etc). They are extensions to the normal attributes which are associated with all inodes in the system (i.e. the stat(2) data). A complete overview of extended attributes concepts can be found in attr(5).

removexattr removes the extended attribute identified by name and associated with the given path in the filesystem.

lremovexattr is identical to removexattr, except in the case of a symbolic link, where the extended attribute is removed from the link itself, not the file that it refers to.

fremovexattr is identical to removexattr, only the extended attribute is removed from the open file pointed to by filedes (as returned by open(2)) in place of path.

An extended attribute name is a simple NULL-terminated string. The name includes a namespace prefix - there may be several, disjoint namespaces associated with an individual inode.

RETURN VALUE

On success, zero is returned. On failure, -1 is returned and errno is set appropriately.

If the named attribute does not exist, errno is set to ENOATTR.

If extended attributes are not supported by the filesystem, or are disabled, errno is set to ENOTSUP.

The errors documented for the stat(2) system call are also applicable here.

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